This blog looks back at classic sports telecasts and announcers (primarily from the mid-1960s to present), provides DVR alerts for upcoming classic programming, and covers other historical aspects of sports media.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

I tracked the strokes televised by CBS during the final round of the PGA Championship. On Sunday, CBS showed 367 strokes from round 4. I included a few shots CBS aired from earlier 4th round coverage, but did not count highlight strokes from the 3rd round. CBS started at 2pm ET and the final putt dropped at 7:23 for an average of 1.14 strokes per minute - a increase over the rate of 1.05 from the 2015 PGA.

CBS showed all 67 strokes by winner Jimmy Walker and bypassed only six from runner-up Jason Day. Henrik Stenson was shown 56 times as CBS devoted over half of its televised strokes to those three. With no re-pairing of the field after the 3rd round, the contenders were spread out. This enabled CBS to bounce around the course as several players were in contention with the leaders on the front 9. CBS showed 25 golfers playing strokes with 10 players getting coverage of at least 12 shots. The highest finisher not shown by CBS was Patrick Reed (T13).

Sunday, July 17, 2016

I tracked the strokes televised by NBC during the Sunday round of the Open Championship. I started tracking at 9am ET to provide a decent comparison to the other majors I have tracked. The final putt was at 1:30pm so the tracking covered 4.5 hours.

NBC aired all but one stroke from winner Henrik Stenson (skipping a tap-in on 12th) and all but two from runner-up Phil Mickelson (bypassing tap-ins on #2 and #5). With those two separating themselves from the field, NBC focused heavily on that pairing. In fact, NBC devoted a whopping 56% of all televised strokes during this period to the Stenson/Mickelson duo (who didn't even tee off until 35 minutes into the tracking).

NBC televised only 224 shots during this period which worked out to 0.83 strokes per minute. This was a sizable decrease from the ESPN shot rate of 1.23 that I measured from the 2015 Open Championship and the lowest rate for any major that I have tracked. The lack of competition from the rest of the field clearly contributed to the low rate. NBC chose to aggressively spotlight the drama and excellence of the lead group (and take numerous commercial breaks) rather than fill time with relatively meaningless golf action from the rest of the pack.